Endless Summer
by Sifl-senpai
Summary: "What can I say? You've given me a taste for beautiful things," Goten said. His dark eyes held dancing constellations inside of them. "And where there's a you, there's a me, and that's just the way it is." Or: Future Trunks searches for home, and he finds it on his first try without even realizing it. Goten/Mirai Trunks
1. The Child with the Wisdom of the Heavens

Author's Note: this was for a Fic swap and is totally finished on my Ao3, but I will be spacing out the chapter updated on this site by a few days. Also, while there is time traveling shenanigans and we see Goten at all ages, there is not going to be any weird underage stuff happening- so have no fear. Thank you to those of you who read it!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Rain hit metal, and the resulting steam hissed in outrage as it fled the site of the collision. Trunks all but destroyed the button that released the hatch above his head and tore out of his overheated machine like a bat out of Hell.

A few tongues of flame persisted in devouring the machine's propulsion devices despite the rain, and Trunks ripped off his denim jacket and began to frantically beat back the conflagration. A string of curses a mile long ran out of his mouth until, finally, his temper flared and release in a gust of clumsy, unwieldy wind that not only snuffed out the fire, but sent the machine onto its side and backwards into the dirt. Trunks scurried forward to right the overturned machine, but hissed in hesitation as he burned his hand on the steaming metal.

"Augh!" he cried, nursing his hand and glaring at his machine. "Stupid thing! Don't give me this kind of grief for something as simple as a test run!" Trunks spread his fingers wide and let the cold rain wash over his burn. Beside him, his machine sat, still on its side, and continued to release generous portions of both white steam and ugly brown smoke. "Shit!" He looked at the rain bombarding him from above and rested his undamaged hand on his hip. "Dammit, dammit. If I ever get back home, I am never letting mom use me to test any modifications she makes to this thing ever again," he muttered.

The machine answered with a crackling pop and a bright spark aimed for Trunks' bare arm.

He yelped in pain on contact, and then and took a few moments to release his entire, uncensored opinion about the situation to the heavens above and the wooded mountain under his feet in the loudest voice he could conjure up.

Trunks finished his tirade with a deep breath, and ran one hand down his face before coating himself in a protective barrier of his own energy. Then, he finally succeeded in pulling his egg-shaped time machine to its four metal feet.

"Hey," a child's voice interrupted, "You're gonna get it wet inside."

Trunks jumped and bumped into his machine with enough force to knock it back down. "Who-?" He whirled around and panned his head back and forth until he finally looked down.

At his feet was a small boy of about seven or eight. He wore a bright orange raincoat over his unruly mess of black hair and big, dark eyes. "You gotta close the door on top first, or water'll get in there and do bad stuff." He pointed to the open hatch where Trunks had exited the machine.

"I, uh," Trunks cleared his throat. "Thanks, but I'm, uh, I'm a little more concerned with the fire coming out of the engine than I am about a little water, kid." He grabbed the machine again. "Don't stand so close. This thing is still hot."

The little boy moved as Trunks hoisted his time machine upright once again, but then quickly jumped into the air and pulled the hatch closed with his bare hands before easing back down to the ground.

"Kid!" Trunks shouted, lifting himself into the air and hanging there like dandelion fluff riding on the breeze, "What are you doing?!"

"You always get mad whenever water gets on your stuff," the boy said, "and when you get mad, you do things that make you even madder later."

"I what, now?"

"Well, the other you does. See, once, I splashed one of his new electro-whatchacallit cars and it sparked and blew up kinda like your big thingy here did, and he pitched a fit just like you did a second ago."

"The other-?" Trunks' eyes widened, and he turned red. "You heard me, just now?"

The little boy nodded. "Yeah. That's how I knew who you were, because you don't just look like Trunks, but you get mad the same way, too. Your ki moves like his does. It's all contained and messy, and then it just goes everywhere when you get tired of holding it in. Uncle Vegeta's does that, too, kinda, when he gets frustrated."

Trunks peered down at the boy. "Uncle Vegeta? Kid, who are you?"

The rain splattered on the ground in a progressively more aggressive beat around them. The trees of the woods around them shuddered when a gust of wind pushed at their branches and slanted the water into them.

The boy shuffled his feet and then screwed his mouth into a frown. "Mom says it's not polite to ask for somebody's name before giving out your own." He shrugged and adjusted his raincoat. "And I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers, even if they're not really strangers and I've met them before."

"Oh. Um, I'm sorry. My name is Trunks, too, like your friend. I'm, um, a time traveller. That big metal thing is my time machine."

The child's face lit up. "I knew it! So you really are a guy who came from the future like Gohan said!" His pearly white teeth peeked out from behind his lips, and his eyes gleamed even brighter than the sun fighting to peek down at them both through the clouds. "That's so cool! I'll bet you've seen all kinds of stuff! Oh! Oh! What's future me like? Is he as cool as you? Does he get a sword, too?"

Trunks spread out his palms as if to hold back to the excited child in front of him. "I don't, um, know? I don't know who you are?"

The boy shed his hood and a mop of wild black hair sprang forth in all directions around his head. Not even the water pelting them both from above could force it back down. "I'm Gohan's little brother, Son Goten!" he exclaimed, pointing at his own face. "Do I look familiar now? Do I? Do I? Huh?"

Trunks took in the child, his expression pensive, and then, slowly, his face bloomed into open disbelief. "I can't believe it didn't hit me earlier. You really do look just like your father," he said.

"Yeah, that's what everybody says. Does future me not, even as a kid? Oh! Was he born with cool hair, like, it's a crazy color, or something?"

"Son Goku has _two_ sons in this time. That's," Trunks breathed. "Gohan has a little brother now. That's amazing." He broke out into a grin. "That's so _amazing!_ "

Goten cocked his head. "Why? What's so amazing about that? Wasn't there a me with you in the future?" His cheeks puffed up as he frowned. "I mean, there was, wasn't there? There had to be! Where there's a you, there's gotta be a me!" He reached out and grabbed Trunks' pant leg. "That's the way it is, isn't it?"

Trunks looked down at the small hands holding his clothing captive. "Well, um, every timeline is different, so the things that happen in this one don't necessarily carry over to mine. I've never met a Son Goten from my time." He gauged the child's expression. "But, you know, maybe there is one! I suppose it's possible for him to be somewhere in the world! Maybe I just haven't come across him yet, you know?"

Goten's wide, round face pressed upwards as his brows scrunched together and made furrows between them.

Trunks's rigid smile wavered, and then cracked.

"I don't like it when you try and lie to me," Goten said. "That's not very nice." He pulled his hood back over his head and jammed his hands into his pockets. "I hate it when you treat me like just a little kid." The mud made a sucking noise as it pulled at Goten's galoshes with each step he took away from Trunks and deeper into the misty woods beyond.

"Uhm, Go…ken, kan, to, uh, nine?" His mouth searched for the child's name. "Um. K-kid! _Kid!_ Wait!" Trunks called after him. "I didn't mean to make you mad. I just didn't want to hurt your feelings. I'm sorry."

Goten halted his footsteps.

"I only ever met your dad and your brother in this timeline, and in mine, there was only your brother, Gohan." Trunks moved a few wet locks of hair out of his eyes, and pulled his jacket off his back and over his head like a canopy.

"Really?"

"Really." Trunks abandoned his machine and made his way towards the boy. "They're all pretty amazing guys. I'm sure you're just like them."

Goten splashed in the sludge of the earth at his feet as he turned around again. His eyes, narrow and glinting, sought out Trunks from beneath the lip of his hood. "My name's Goten. _Go_ as in wisdom and _ten_ as in the heavens. _Go Ten_. Goten. I'm not my brother, and I'm not my dad. And you should know that better than anybody."

"Oh! N-no, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't your own person, I just thought that, um." Trunks watched his footprints in the mud slowly fill with water. "I would be proud to have a family like them, and I just figured you would, too."

Goten's guarded frown broke into a smile. "Well, you're right about that much. My brother's the greatest, and my dad is the strongest guy in the whole universe!" he said.

"Yes," Trunks said, smiling back. "That's certainly true."

Goten peered back up at the older boy. "Woah. You really are different than my Trunks," he said.

"Hm?"

"Yeah. Trunks never woulda said that my dad was the strongest."

"Oh? Who does he think is the strongest?"

Goten grinned. "His dad, of course."

Trunks cast his eyes to the ground and bit down on his lower lip with a chuckle. "I see!"

"And uncle Vegeta is pretty strong and cool, but Gohan says that our dad's the best. And it's gotta be true if Gohan says so. Besides," he added, "My dad is the one who finished off Majinn Buu, so that proves it."

"Do you two fight about stuff like this a lot?" Trunks asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. We fight about all sorts of stuff. It's fun. But it doesn't matter, really. I know what Trunks is really thinkin'. He just wants to show how much he loves his dad. It's not that important if he's really stronger than mine or not. He just makes it into a big deal to make me mad, and because he thinks it's like something he needs to prove no matter what."

Trunks tilted his head. "Huh. Is that right?"

"It kinda gets on my nerves, sometimes, though, that he says a buncha stuff but he's thinking something else. But I always know, though. It would be weird if I didn't." Goten turned to gaze at Trunks, intent written all over his face. "I wonder if I can know what you're thinking, too, since you don't have your own Goten to do it, after all."

Trunks looked back down at the boy. Goten's bright eyes pierced through the water's grey haze and the stormy air pulled at his clothing, but he paid it no mind as he focused on nothing but Trunks.

And then he sneezed.

"Oh! Bless you," Trunks said.

Goten snorted. "Maybe not."

Thunder rumbled in the distance as the sky drew a thicker curtain of white water over the horizon. It engulfed the top of the mountain and cascaded downward, towards Trunks and Goten both.

"It's gonna get really stormy, and I'm cold. I'm gonna go home before mom and Gohan get worried," Goten said. "You gotta go back and pilot your time machine thingy so you can get home, too, right?"

Trunks eyed the wall of water crawling towards them. "That would be nice, but I don't know if my machine is operational anymore. It was overheating, and I don't-"

"It'll be fine," Goten interrupted him. "The rain cooled it off."

"I don't think it's that simple," Trunks said. "See, when something overheats, usually that means that some part of it is working too hard, and then, when it breaks because of the heat, it doesn't-"

"'Scuse me, but, um. I don't wanna stand out here in the cold anymore," Goten interrupted. "And you're the one who told me to tell you to get back in it before it started to storm the next time I saw you. You said it would take you where you needed to go next even though you thought it was broken."

"What?" Trunks said. "When did I say that?"

Goten shrugged. "I dunno. Two weeks ago? I think. I can't remember, exactly. I lost count. But the first time we met."

Trunks blinked. "We've met before? But you got upset that I never told you my name. How can that be?"

"You didn't say much, you just told me to tell you that thing I just told you about the machine and the overheating, and that it was important. So I came out here to find you and tell you."

"Huh?"

Goten pointed at the time machine. "You should really go now, unless you wanna get really wet." He bowed, and then disappeared in the woods. "See you later!"

"W- wait, Goten!" Trunks cried. "Are you sure that I didn't-!" The raindrops increased their numbers and pelted Trunks in warning of what was to come. He pursed his lips, glared at the whole situation, and then raced for the cover of his time machine.


	2. Fishing

The time machine tumbled out of the sky over a horizon painted in viridian and emerald and olive and sent up pieces of leaves dyed the same colors into the air like confetti as it made contact with the ground. Trunks popped out of it a moment later, cursing.

"If it weren't for the fact that I can't break through the space-time continuum, I'd fly home _myself_ ," he hissed at it.

He fumed for a few more minutes and then took in his surroundings. "So this is where I wanted to tell myself to be," he said. The mountain sat beneath him, as giant and as vacant in the late summer as it had been in the same season's early rains. "Well, the weather's better."

Trunks yanked off his soaked jacket and threw it against the forest floor. Then, he pulled off his pants, shoes, and socks, and spread them all out in the brightest patch of sunlight piercing through the trees that he could find. His hair fell from the ponytail he had fashioned it in as he pulled apart the knots and wrung it out next, and his underwear and shirt joined his pile of drying clothes in the sunlight.

"Woah," said a voice, and Trunks whirled around, arm extended and a ball of light sitting in his palm.

" _Woah_ ," the voice repeated with a longer lilt, "Calm down. You might be able to accuse me of being a peeping tom right now, but I am not about to cause you any trouble. A figure looked down at Trunks from the branches of a particularly robust tree. His legs dangled over the side and kicked back and forth. "Well," he reconsidered, "I won't start any trouble unless you do first."

Trunks stood, poised as if to strike down the figure in the tree, but held his fire. "What do you want? Are you an android? Are you here to kill me?"

" _What_? No, that's ridiculous." The figure in the tree dropped down to the ground. He stood at Trunks's height. "The only things on Mount Paozu that wanna kill you are the dinosaurs, the tigers, and the bears, and the only thing up here that's made of metal is our toaster." The sunlight illuminated the boy's dark hair and tanned skin. "And I guess the rest of our kitchen appliances. And the television." He scratched his scalp. "And my brother's telescope. And his computer. And the plumbing." He flashed a mouthful of teeth. "And the car. Alright, there's a significant amount of metal stuff on this mountain, but none of it is anywhere near sophisticated enough to have an artificial AI. So, no androids." He sauntered over and gave Trunk's time machine a once-over. "Alright, I _say_ that nothing around here has an AI, but for all I know, this thing does, so I'm just gonna stop making any assumptions before I look like even more of an ass. But to answer your original question, no, _I_ am not an android, nor am I a mercenary. I think."

Trunks watched the newcomer and kept his palm trained on him and his casual posture.

The newcomer frowned and put his hands on his hips. "Geez, man, you didn't act like you were gonna fry me when I startled you a kid. What happened since then?" His hair fell down around his neck and over his ears, but it stood away from his scalp in varying layers, like it wanted to defy gravity itself and stand straight up when it had more length to work with. He shook it out of his eyes.

"When you were a kid?" Trunks released his energy and lowered his arms. "Son Go...ten?" His mouth fell agape. " _Son Goten?!_ "

Goten's eyes glimmered like laughing stars. "You remembered!" he exclaimed. "But not fast enough." With a shake of his head, he let his hands slide from his hips and sauntered over to Trunks.

"I'm sorry! I didn't realize it was you," Trunks said, dropping his guard. "I never expected to see you again so soon, and so much older." He smiled. "While I didn't get home like I was hoping to, I guess it's for the best that I listened when you-"

Goten's hip collided with Trunks's so that he lost his balance, and then he snatched up Trunks's arm and used it to flip him over and onto the ground. Goten finished the move by pinning him to the ground.

Trunks wrenched his head away from the ground and spat out a cocktail of dirt and leaves. "What was that for?!"

"You didn't remember my name fast enough," Goten said, releasing Trunks and sprawling out face-up on the ground next to him. "That's what you get."

Trunks sat up and shook his head. His wet bangs fell over his eyes. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. From my point of view, I've only just met you a few moments ago." He ran a hand through his hair and pushed it back out of his face.

Goten threw his arms behind his head with a laugh. "There's no need to get all serious on me," he said. "Man! I can tell Gohan raised you."

Trunks' eyes grew bigger. "Wh-huh?" He crossed his legs. "Did your brother tell you that about me?"

Goten grinned a lazy, easy smile. "Nope. I'm just a good guesser." He cocked his head to look at Trunks. "And I know because Gohan raised _me_ , too. A different Gohan, I guess, but still." Goten's warm eyes rivaled the sun on Trunks' back.

"Ah."

The dark haired boy chuckled.

The birds of the mountain dominated the conversation as the two boys basked in the sunlight coming down through the trees and admired the sky.

"So. How, um. How is he?" Trunks finally asked.

"Hm?"

"How is your brother?"

"Married." Goten said, readjusting his head atop his hands and knitting his fingers behind his skull to make a cradle.

"O-oh." Trunks nodded. "Wow. That's… that's wonderful."

Goten's dark pupils snuck to the corner of his eyes as he trained them back on Trunks. "He has a daughter now, too. He's never been happier."

Trunks watched the crystal blue sky for a long moment. Then, he inhaled. "I'm glad for him. He deserves it."

"Yeah. My brother's a great guy," Goten said.

"Yeah." Trunks gripped at the grass and leaves scattered about the ground beneath him, and absentmindedly pulled bits of the flora apart. "His wife must be a lucky woman indeed."

"He's stopped training, too," Goten continued. "It kinda lowkey gets on some people's nerves, but he's using that time to focus on his job and family. He's turned into a scrawny little thing. A total wimp." He gauged Trunks's reaction. "Like, I think my bicep is bigger than his whole body combined is." He produced an arm and flexed with a cheeky grin.

Trunks tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. "But if that's what makes him happy, then I admire him for pursuing it." He smiled. "My Gohan wanted to be a scholar, too." Then, he stole a glance at Goten. "Yours _is_ a scholar, right?"

Goten's expression flattened for a moment before the quirk of his lips came back with a vengeance, as if to make up for its momentary absence with renewed vigor. "Yup. Physics and life sciences. Both. At the same time." He stretched out in the sun. " _Total_ nerd. It's kind of embarrassing, actually, to watch him go on about it."

Trunks shook his head. "I still think it's admirable to pursue what makes you happy. That kind of determination is part of what makes him Gohan. It's what I always liked about him."

A puff of air escaped from Goten's nose with a pronounced huff.

"Is something wrong?" Trunks asked.

"Nah, nah." The dark haired boy leaned his head back all the way to the ground. "'S'nothin'. Just," he sighed. Never mind."

"What is it?" Trunks pried. "Did I say something wrong?"

Goten took a deep breath. "Nope. No. Nah." He exhaled through his nose with each word.

Trunks leaned over him. "No, seriously. Tell me."

Goten stuck out his lower lip and gave Trunks a once-over, top to bottom. "Mmm, nah. I don't feel like it."

"Um," Trunks said, moving his hands to his lap. He turned away from Goten and pretended that the sunlight could warm the ensuing awkward silence into something more comfortable.

Then, the other boy spoke. "You. You're really into my brother, aren't you?"

"Of course! He was my mentor and best friend." Trunks perked up and smiled.

"Yeah, sure, but I mean, you _like_ him."

Trunks's eyes grew to twice their size. "Well, yes! But I-! I mean, n-no! I mean-!" He crossed his arms in front of himself. "Not like that!"

Goten absorbed Trunks's animated denial, and then broke out into another, more mischievous grin. "You seem nervous. Are you lyin' to me? Because you know I hate it when you do that."

Trunks leaned down on all fours and shoved his face into Goten's. "But I'm _not!_ Gohan from my time was my hero and- and almost like _my_ big brother! I love him, sure, but not like _that_!"

The leaves shook as a gentle breeze flitted over them both. Goten's eyes held a glowering, calculating look, and then softened back into their normal twinkle.

"Alright, calm down. I believe you." He chuckled and hoisted himself up on his forearms so that they were eye-to-eye. "You're really bad at lying, huh? You've got too honest of a disposition."

"Do I?"

"Yeah. Way too earnest." He looked down. "And you're leaning over me in nothing but your birthday suit even though you barely know my name."

Trunks's face took on the hue of the wild strawberries poking up out of the forest floor, and he backpedaled until he fell onto his rear. He pulled his knees up to cover himself. "Excuse me. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I was just-"

Goten laughed, loud and childish. "Trunks, I don't care! It's nothing I've never seen before!"

The white of Trunks's eyes and gritted teeth contrasted sharply with the dark flush on his face. "I-!" His neck began to match his face. "You-!"

"Me," Goten finished, still snickering. "Say, are you hungry?" He popped up to his feet. "'Cause I'm hungry." He stretched out his torso, and then his arms. Lean muscle pulled on lean muscle as he rolled his shoulders and shook his head. "Well?"

Trunks gaped up at him, still the very definition of embarrassed. A hungry whine sounded from his stomach.

"I'm thinkin' fish," Goten said. "Yeah." He pulled off his shirt and pants and let them make friends with Trunks's wet clothes already strewn about the forest floor. His underwear had stars on them. "Hey," he took a few steps into the woods and then pirouetted around to face Trunks again. "You comin'?" he asked.

"I, um, I need to fix my machine and get back home," Trunks said, carefully looking at anything but Goten.

"Yeah? With what tools?"

"I have a toolbox in the cockpit."

"So, like, what? You've got a wrench and duct tape?"

"I've got coolant and oil, too," Trunks retorted.

"Huh," said Goten. "Is that all you're gonna need to fix it?"

Trunks suddenly took an obsessive interest in the ground.

"And you wanna go for it on an empty stomach?"

A whine from Trunks's abdomen answered on his behalf.

Goten scratched the back of his head. "You gonna put yourself through that just because I pissed you off?"

"I'm not _mad_ , I'm," Trunks glowered up at him and pulled his knees even closer to his chest, "I'm embarrassed!"

"You're mad _because_ you're embarrassed. Don't try and tell me you aren't. You know how much that gets on my nerves."

"I don't appreciate you trying to second-guess my thoughts," Trunks fired back.

Goten took a step back, wounded, and then smiled softly. "I'm sorry. I forget that people have walls, sometimes, and even though I don't mind it when you walk through mine, I'm not allowed to just walk on through yours." He brushed his hair out of his eyes and held out a hand. "But really. Aren't you gonna come fishing with me?"

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but like you said, I barely know you."

Goten's grin spread back over his face. "Oh, how the tables have turned," he said. "Tell you what. The river's right over there. I'm gonna go catch something and roast it. You can wait here if you want, or try and go gallivanting off in a busted time machine again, or you can change your mind and follow me, like, whenever, I guess, whatever you want. Your stuff'll be fine." He winked. "If you wait, I can go get Bulma to come fix that thing for you, and you can visit with my _darling, dashing_ older brother and dear ol' Uncle Vegeta, too, while you're at it." He spun on his heel. "Or, you know, don't. It's up to you. I can't tell you what to do."

Trunks watched the other boy practically skip off into the woods, whistling and flaring his energy like a beacon as he went. He looked from his discarded clothes, to the machine, and then back to the brush Goten disappeared into.

He shoved both of his feet through the legs of his underwear and followed Goten into the green of the forest beyond. "H-hey!"

The other boy appeared as if by magic from the woods, the warm sunlight gleaming off of his black hair like flames off of a piece of coal. "You comin'? Awesome!" He nudged Trunks in the ribs. "If I've got company, mom can't get as mad at me for cutting class on Friday!"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

By the time Trunks and Goten emerged from the woods, the whole world was painted in shades of sunlight that reached around the clouds to turn everything a warm gold like the color of brass illuminated in firelight. The Son household sat, cozy and homey, on the side of Mount Paozu, nestled in a grassy clearing as to better catch the warm attention of the sunset.

The smell of roasting vegetables and meat twisted with the smoke rising from the chimney of the quaint, dome-shaped heart of the home.

"Goten!" A woman's voice called, and soon Son Chi Chi was at the doorway, a plate in one hand, a dishrag in the other, and her slender eyebrows angled towards the center of her face. "Where have you been all day, you lazy boy? And-" she did a double-take and the fire in her eyes momentarily quenched itself. "Ah, hello, Trunks. My, your hair has gotten long." Then, she turned back to her son, anger rekindled. "You're not off the hook yet, mister! And why aren't you wearing your clothes?!"

Goten grinned at his mother and patted the wad of shirt and pants in his hands. His eyes glimmered like the stars on his boxers, and he winked at Trunks. "We just decided to do a little fishin', that's all."

Chi Chi sniffed, and then wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, you did. I can smell it on you." She resigned herself to gathering up her son's laundry, and then took Trunks's out of his hands. "I suppose I can do yours, too, and save Bulma the trouble." She sighed and journeyed back into the house. "You can wear the clothes you left here last week. They're in your drawer inside Goten's room, with your spare pajamas."

Trunks opened his mouth to say something to her, but Goten nudged him with his shoulder and stole the attention away from his mother.

"She thinks you're the other Trunks," he said. "Most everybody outside your family is going to think you're the other Trunks at first, except me, 'cause they don't know you the way I do." Goten laughed.

"Yes, I figured she thought I was him," Trunks said, taking a step towards the house.

Goten gently grabbed his bicep. "Let's not tell her. Let's see how long it takes mom to figure it out."

"Huh? Why? I don't want to lie to your mother," Trunks said.

"Lie? About what?" Goten released his arm and nudged him again, more thoroughly. "You're Trunks, aren'tcha? And you're Bulma and Vegeta's son, aren'tcha? What's there to lie about?"

"Well, yes, but that isn't the point! You know what I mean."

"Do I?" Goten stuck out his tongue. "I thought I wasn't supposed to second-guess you."

Trunks' speechless face gave way to a light glare, and then he rubbed the wrinkles out of his brows with a thumb and forefinger while Goten chuckled. "First of all, I would hate to impose," Trunks said, his hands abandoning his face and gripping one another. "And it isn't right, you know?"

"What's not right about it?"

"Taking someone else's identity. Inserting myself into a world that I'm not supposed to be a part of."

"That didn't stop you from coming here, though," Goten mused.

"Yes, but I don't stay here," Trunks countered.

"Really?" Goten scratched his head. "I was told you hung around for dad's funeral, and before that to train, and-"

"Those were very different situations! I had to, then!" Trunks cried. "But this? This would just be frivolous, and worse, now there's another version of me- about my same age, now- whose life and identity I am actually encroaching upon in a significant way by being here!"

"Hm." Goten's arms folded themselves behind his black hair. "You say he's another person, and I say he's another person, but then, just now, you turn around and say that, no, he's another you, but he's still you."

"W-well, I-I, um!"

"So which is it?"

Trunks's face began to change color, and not from embarrassment. "Look, that's not what the problem is! That part isn't what's important!"

"Yes it is," Goten argued, his lips pushing out into a pout.

"No, it isn't!"

"Dinner with my family isn't that big of a deal," Goten said. "Like, Trunks does that almost every other day, so it's not like it's anything special. And he isn't even here to miss out on it. Not like mom wouldn't feed both of you at the same time if he were here, mind you. But still."

"It is a big deal, though!"

Goten screwed his face into a thoughtful frown. "But you're not depriving him of anything. You're just, you know, borrowing his time for awhile, maybe."

"Exactly!"

"Hmm." Goten wrapped his fingers around his chin and gave a deeper frown to the grass under his feet. "Hm. Okay, okay." He nodded to himself, and then, "Yeah, nope, I don't get it. I don't see your point."

"The point is, I can't do that to the other Trunks!"

"Yeah you can. Because first of all, you're not actually another him, and even if you were, he really wouldn't care all that much about something like this," Goten said, scratching the side of his neck.

"W-wh-!" A small crater formed where Trunks slammed his foot down. "How would you know what he does or doesn't think about it?! It's his life and his time to enjoy it in peace, finally! That's not something someone ought to just give away thoughtlessly!" He rounded on Goten. "Things like that aren't a joke, or just something for you to play dumb games with! They're precious! And you, you take it for granted like it's nothing!"

At first, Goten's features widened into a picture of hurt, but it melted away as the gentle glow of the setting sun reached around the mountains touched his face and set it alight with the colors of a pastel dusk. "Come on. Let's go eat," he said.

"Were you not listening to me?!" Trunks said, raising his fists.

"I was. But come inside anyway. Trust me."

"Trust?! Trust you? With what? With the space-time continuum? With my mirror image's life?"

Goten shook his head, his dark hair bouncing between both the momentum of his head and the gentle breeze."No, man. With yours."

The wind grabbed at Trunks's hair, too, and pulled it away from his face like a lavender curtain lifted to reveal Goten for the first time. Each strand waved at the quiet trees around them both, and then to the vigilant, sun-stained mountain chain standing at attention in the distance beyond.

"Aren't you curious?" Goten gently interrupted the birds calling to one another in the distance.

"Huh?"

"What it's like. Here. What the life of a Trunks that isn't you is like. What a world of peace looks like. What it feels like, what it smells like."

Trunks licked his lips with a dry tongue. The sun made Goten's eyes gleam even brighter above the ridges of his smiling cheeks, brighter than the scales of the fish they had cleaned for lunch, brighter than the light dancing on the water of the river Goten had coaxed him into.

"Boys," Chi Chi called from inside the house, "hurry and clean yourselves up before dinner gets cold!"

"Yeah, and what a world of peace tastes like, too- or what mom's food tastes like, at least, hopefully, because I'm definitely hungry." Goten chuckled, and his stomach joined in with a chorus of growls. Then, he nudged Trunks in the shoulder again. "So come inside. See how the other half lives, huh?"

Trunks looked from Goten to the woods.

"Your time machine is broken, anyway," Goten argued. "So stop worrying about it. Enjoy life for the moment, you know? Worrying isn't gonna make it get fixed any faster." He sauntered towards the open door and then carelessly pirouetted on his heel to face Trunks again from within the frame of the entryway.

Tentatively, Trunks took a step towards the Sons, and then another, and Goten grinned as he threw an arm over his shoulders and lead him inside.


	3. My House is Your House

"So," Goten said, pulling something out of a drawer and tossing it at Trunks, "You don't like vegetables, huh?"

Trunks caught the wad of fabric and looked down as a nightshirt and pajama pants unfurled in his hands. "Excuse me?"

"You ate 'em first, but not like the way someone would if they thought someone else was gonna steal 'em if they didn't. Nah, it wasn't fast enough for that. You ate 'em like someone who was trying to get it over with so they could move on to something else." Goten flopped down on one of the two twin beds butted up against one another in the center of the room. "I'm guessing you don't have any siblings. Or, well, a _me_ following you around, either. Definitely not."

"I don't have any siblings, no." Trunks pulled off his borrowed tee shirt and replaced it with the pajama top. "But I like vegetables okay, too." He started on switching out his pants. "I just like the meat and the rice better." He nodded. "Your mother is a very good cook."

"Yup. She's the best!"

The moon hanging high in the sky outside braved the glare of the lights leaking out of the open window and peeked at both boys through the glass panes.

"You sit up straighter, too. All the time. Not just when you think my mom's lookin'. You were always sitting up straight," Goten reported.

"So did you," Trunks said.

"That's because I know my mom's _never_ not looking." Goten rolled onto his back and then leapt to his feet onto the wooden floor. "Man, I shoulda gotten it when I was in the bathroom."

"Hm?"

"You need a toothbrush. I'll get you one. C'mon."

Goten lead Trunks out of the quaint bedroom loft, down the stairs, and to a tiny closet nestled between the kitchen and the master bedroom. He produced a blue toothbrush from between the stacks of pristine towels and blankets and handed it to Trunks. "There you go. You can use my toothpaste. It's in the drawer on the right of the sink, by dad's. I'll show ya."

"Oh, thank you." Trunks said. "So, um," he blinked. "Wait, by dad's? By _Goku's_? When were you born? I thought that Son Goku was dead when I was last here!"

"Oh. He prolly was. But he came back."

"He did?" Trunks broke out into a smile. "So he's alive? Is he going to be home soon? I would love to say hello!"

Goten shrugged, and then let his eyes roam over the space to the right of Trunks's head. "Huh. Look at that. I can't sense him anywhere." He grinned. "So I dunno if he'll be home soon. He's not on the planet, definitely."

"E-excuse me? Not on the planet?"

"Mmhm. Dunno _where_ he is, exactly, but I can at least tell you _that_ much." Goten turned and lead his guest across the little living room and to the bathroom. "He's still off training Uub, so he's probably with Kaiosama." He opened a drawer and dug his hand around inside.

"I mean, he had just come home from outer space when I first met him, but, I was under the impression that such a thing wasn't a normal occurrence for him," Trunks said, loading his toothbrush with the toothpaste Goten retrieved for him.

"Outer space?" Goten leaned on the door frame. "No, no. That happens, but it's not quite as common- not outside of this one planet, which is, like, more like another plain of existence, really. But I don't think he's in space, no."

"Oh?" Trunks put the toothbrush into his mouth and began to scrub.

"Yeah. I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that he's not in this world at all right now. He's in heaven, with the gods."

Trunks spat foam from his mouth and onto the mirror. "You mean he's dead?!"

"You missed the sink," Goten mused.

"Goku is _dead_?! Again?!"

"Oh," said Goten, grabbing a nearby hand towel and leaning over to clean the mirror. "Nah. He's not dead. He just visits the afterlife again sometimes. I get the feeling that the folks upstairs consider him to be some kinda stray cat that likes to come around sometimes, or maybe a mascot. Everyone sort of lets him do as he pleases. Dad tends to go back and forth between whoever feeds him and fights with him, so I guess it fits." He tilted his head towards Trunks, who still had toothpaste and spittle running out of his open mouth and down his chin. "You're not very thorough when you brush your teeth, huh?"

"N-no! I only, I-!" Trunks's shoulders shot up into the air and he diligently reloaded his toothbrush and scrubbed away at the inside of his mouth.

Goten moved to stand next to him, and looked into his eyes from the reflection of the mirror. His darker face was more rounded than Trunks's, and his hair glimmered in the bathroom light like each individual strand was coated in lacquer. "Dad's not really around a whole lot, but maybe he'll pop in for a second. You never really know with him." He smiled.

"Do you miss him?" Trunks asked around his toothbrush.

"Hm?" Goten gazed up at the ceiling. The mirror reflected the inside of his nose. "Nah. It's hard to miss something that was never really around for you to learn to miss." He looked back down at Trunks and winked. "No big deal."

"W-well," Trunks said, taking the toothbrush out of his mouth, "when you were little you looked just like him, so I guess if you ever did miss him, you could've just looked in a mirror." He smiled as he rinsed the brush, and glanced up at his companion.

At that, Goten chuckled, but it fell flat at the end. The room grew dimmer, if only for a second, and the mirror charted the diverted path Goten's eyes made on its surface.

Trunks spat into the sink and rinsed out his mouth. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Hm? Nah," Goten said, flipping off the lights and scratching at the crown of his head. He turned around and wandered back up the stairs. "G'night, mom," he called.

"Good night, Mrs. Son," Trunks followed suit. "And thank you very much for dinner and for letting me stay!"

Chi Chi's response was muffled through her bedroom door.

"You act _too_ polite and you're gonna blow your cover," Goten said, turning off another light and sloppily laying himself out over his bed.

"I can't believe she hasn't figured it out already," Trunks said.

"Mmyeah, it's because as Trunks got older, he started to get more polite around other people."

"Are we really so alike?" Trunks asked, following the light of the moon to the bed next to where Goten lay. "Maybe we _are_ the same person," he mused.

"No, you're not." Goten said.

"Are you sure? It's hard to say, really, since this is an entirely different universe. I mean, I'd think not, too, but it's sort of fascinating to think about if certain people are destined to be a certain way no matter what happens, or if the same soul can exist in two places at once, like, oh, I don't know, some kind of manifestation of destiny? Like we're two halves of the same whole, somehow."

"You're not, though."

"But how do you know?" Trunks asked, turning his head to listen to the chorus of frogs serenading the summer moon above. "The two of us could be the same person, just split apart. Maybe, after we both die and our spirits leave this world, we'll fuse into one being because we were meant to, and-"

"It doesn't work like that. Death doesn't work like that. Fusion doesn't work like that."

"Huh? I don't understand." Trunks frowned at the darkness. "But if we're the same person, wouldn't it only be natural that we turn into one being? After all, there's this story I read where humans were once born with two sets of arms and legs, but were split apart when-"

Goten shot up from his bed, and Trunks flinched as the other boy's tanned hands planted themselves firmly into the pillow on both sides of his head.

"You're _not the same_ ," Goten said. "You're not the same person at all, no matter how similar you are on the surface. Not like that."

The low, soft twang of the frogs floated into the room. The moon held its breath along with Trunks as he looked up at the determined twin slivers of starlight shining out of Goten's eyes.

"You and Trunks look alike so people tell you you're the same. Dad and I look alike, so people think we're the same. We're not! We're not copies of each other. People aren't just cheap copies of each other."

Trunks swallowed, his hair softly brushing back and forth under the pressure of the summer night's warmth and the push of Goten's breath wafting down from above him.

"When you're really the same person, it's about more than what's outside, more than what other people can see. It's about how much effort you put into it, and how much you totally understand yourself, even when half of yourself is in another body and thinking other thoughts and doing other things, with a life of their own." The moonlight caught in Goten's hair and illuminated half of his face. The other half remained shrouded, like it was not there at all. "'Cause the truth is, totally knowing yourself means getting to know yourself. Accepting yourself. Like one would a stranger, maybe slowly, over time, but then finally knowing them so well that they aren't a stranger at all anymore. And they know you." Goten crawled off of Trunks and settled back into his own bed. "It's hard, being one person. It's not something that just magically _happens_ one day because you look kinda like somebody else."

Trunks caught his breath and watched the ceiling. The fan hanging above him rotated so fast that the individual blades held the illusion that they were a single, spinning disk.

"I'm sorry I upset you," Trunks said. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know you didn't," Goten said. "So I'm sorry, too."

Trunks nodded against his pillow, and then pulled himself out from underneath his sheets so that the cooler air could reach him better. The frogs outside carried on with their song, undeterred.

"I just wanted you to _get_ it, is all." Goten's voice broke through the night's concert. "I got tired of joking about it." He sighed. "But you still don't, huh."

Trunks licked his lips. "No, I'm not sure that I do."

"It eats at us, is why," Goten continued. "We both keep getting told we're copies," he said.

Trunks turned his head to study Goten's back, his eyebrows furrowed. "'We'?"

"Yeah. Everyone looks at me and sees my dad," Goten said, rolling over to look at Trunks, "while _he_ keeps getting told he's like you."

Trunks's eyes grew wide, and the moonlight made his irises appear the same color as the night sky. "'He'?"

"Yeah. Trunks." Goten nodded. "But he's not you. And you're not him. I know that about you 'cause I know better than anybody. I can see how you're different. So that's why." He smiled softly and turned back away to face the opposite wall.

Trunks looked back at the fan. "Goten?" he asked. "Are you and Trunks, um." He cleared his throat. "Are you the same person?"

The fan hiccuped above them for an instant, and then resumed its even, seamless rotation.

"Sometimes," Goten answered. "We aren't always _one_ as much anymore. But yes," he said. "We're both part of the same person." He yawned. "Where there's a Trunks, there's a Goten."

Trunks laughed. "You said something similar to me when I first saw you as a child."

"Hm," Goten said, shifting on the mattress. His breathing steadied, and soon his side rose and fell in the same gentle, even meter as the frog choir's song, almost as if Goten were their metronome.

"Goten?" Trunks asked.

There was no answer.

"Goodnight," Trunks said. He closed his eyes and settled into his bed.

"I'll show you," Goten's tired voice erupted from his supine body with a sigh. "I'll show you what I mean. And maybe we can be the same person, too, but in a different way." Drowsiness coated over his words. "It'll be dif'rent." He sighed and flipped onto his stomach, his face burying itself into his pillow. "Jus' dif'rent."

Goten's soft snoring matched the frogs in pitch a moment later.

"Ah," Trunks said.

Their two mattresses lay next to one another like like the first and second halves of an open, unfinished book. The moon highlighted over both with a single, broad stroke of light that folded around and over the bed like a blanket.

"Maybe." Trunks closed his eyes shut, too, and fell into a deep sleep beneath the cover of darkness and moonlight.


	4. How The Other Half Lives

West City's horizon carved skyscrapers and impossibly tall, precarious, dome-topped silhouettes into the horizon like the canopy of a rainforest, and all the hustle and bustle of the city itself concentrated beneath it like undergrowth. Beneath that, the residential areas spilled out onto the urban jungle's floor for miles upon miles.

The Capsule Corporation claimed a significant quarter of the city and spanned all three upper levels of the cityscape, and then some as its tallest building- emerged higher than any of the other skyscrapers clustered within the rest of the city.

"That one's new," Goten said, nodding to the behemoth of glass and steel. "It's just a corporate office, but they give tours up to the roof because of how big and shiny it is."

Trunks nodded, his eyes wide. He slowed to a stop and hung in midair as he absorbed the landscape.

"So your West City doesn't look like this?" Goten asked, halting his flight as well to keep abreast of Trunks. He floated in slow circles around his stunned companion.

"My West City is mostly in ruins," Trunks said.

"Oh." Goten's enthusiastic cycling lost momentum, and then finally stopped altogether. "I'm sorry." He looked over his shoulder at the city, and then shook his head. "I keep forgetting."

"You never saw it like that, so there's nothing for you to remember." Trunks thrust his hands in the pockets of his borrowed jeans. "Count your blessings," he said.

Goten nodded. "Yeah." He crossed his arms and considered the world below them, alive and well beneath the vibrant summer sun. Then, he touched Trunks's arm with his elbow. "You, too."

"What?"

"You count mine, too," Goten said. "Because, maybe," he swallowed and nodded again, more vigorously, "maybe they'll be yours one day, too." The wind tousled his hair so that it obscured his expression.

"Huh?"

Goten shook his dark locks away and revealed a smile. "C'mon. There're a lot of things I wanna show you, and some people you'll want to see."

Bulma's personal lab was sparkling clean and cool despite the brutal heat of the outside. Streamlined, futuristic lines defining the machines spaced about the room and in the architecture both, and the lady of the house stood in the center of it, gloves and an apron covering over her designer dress and jewelry like her brilliant mind and scientific prowess were just another accessory.

Bulma's smile alone could power the entire city for a week once her mouth stopped gaping open like a fish's. "Trunks!" She pulled him into a hug. "Oh, this is too wild! I'll have to get some photos before you go."

"Ah, moth-Bulma! You're still as beautiful as ever!"

"Thanks! We Briefs don't age, y'know." She gently slugged his shoulder. "And call me whatever you want- you're basically family in more ways than the logical at this point." She winked and strode over to a speaker affixed to the wall. "Trunks Briefs, please report to Bulma's personal mechanics lab for a _very_ important appointment. _Truuuuunks_ Briefs." She laughed, her golden earrings dancing in time with the sound.

"Is he an inventor now, too?" Trunks asked.

"Oh, no. He's a lot more suited for telling other people what to do and how to do it than he is doing it himself," Bulma said, sharing a snicker with Goten.

"Trunks runs the company," Goten explained.

"Oh! He must be very busy. I would hate to be a nuisance," Trunks said, gripping at his hands.

"Nonsense!" Bulma said, waving off his concerns. "It's a treat! And more than that, I can't wait to see the look on his face!" She covered her mouth with a gloved hand. "And Vegeta's, when he sees the two of you next to one another, just like it's no big deal! Two of the same person!"

Goten chose to direct his attention at the tools lying about on the table. Trunks watched him out of the corner of his eye.

Bulma, thoroughly tickled by her own imagination, removed her hand from her face and gestured towards both boys. Her bright red lipstick was still perfectly spread over her shapely lips with nary a smudge. "So, anyway, what is it that you need, boys?"

Trunks pulled an orange and white capsule out of his pocket. "Well, you see, it's my time machine."

"Yeah, I figured." Bulma took the little device from his hand and tossed it onto the ground, where it exploded in a puff of smoke that solidified into a familiar ovoid machine.

" _Man_ , that thing looks like an egg on stilts," Goten commented. "I think that every time I see it."

"It keeps overheating," Trunks explained. "And it won't leave this timeline, or, I think, the physical coordinates I've set into it. I could travel through the time of this timeline, but only to the same place on Mount Paozu."

Bulma nodded. "Hmm. Mm-hmm." She leaned down to peer a little closer at it. "Okay. I gotcha." She straightened herself out. "I'll see what I can do."

Just then, the door to the lab opened with a soft whoosh and a young man of nineteen stepped into the room, the suit on his body almost as manicured and pristine as he himself was. "Hey, mom. What did you-" his crystalline blue eyes fell onto Trunks.

"Hello," Trunks said. He put forth a hand. "It's very nice to meet you. My name is, um," his face turned a soft shade of pink while Bulma snorted in the background, "Trunks."

The young man turned his face to look at Goten, who shook his head from left to right, once. At that, the young man drifted his gaze to sit even with Trunks's dark blue eyes and long hair, and then took his outstretched hand. "This is going to get confusing," he said with a rueful smile. " _I'm_ Trunks. You can be something else."

"Don't be rude," Bulma said, the smile still plain on her face.

Goten snorted. "Yeah, _Mister Corporate_. After all, the two of you do make-"

"Don't," the native Trunks said.

"- _quite_ the pair of Trunks," Goten finished.

Trunks groaned from beneath his neatly trimmed bangs and the brown suit on his frame all but wrinkled in agony. His doppelganger, however, turned a brighter shade of pink beneath his longer, lighter hair.

Bulma only laughed.

The kitchen was as sleek and sophisticated as everything else emblazoned with the Capsule Corporation logo. It was frigid and futuristic at first, but once Goten and the three Briefs burst in and opened the camouflaged panels hidden within the walls to reveal the incredible amounts of food stored inside, it warmed considerably.

Goten and his best friend helped themselves to the pantry, as did their guest after a thorough round of convincing from the duo and the lady of the house.

"So," Goten said, gulping down the last of his third sandwich and turning to the Trunks of another time, "I was thinking that we could show you around the Capsule Corp Complex, while we were here. Izzat something you'd be interested in?"

"Well, I would certainly love to see how much it has changed since I was last here," the visiting Trunks said, his fork and knife politely sawing his fish into bite-sized pieces.

"We'll start out in the center, then. If we go too far into the more public parts, people will start nagging me about meetings or something. Trunks the CEO now wore a teal tee shirt and shorts in favor of his brown suit. A rapidly-emptying bowl of spaghetti sat in front of him, the strings of noodles and sauce disappearing into his mouth like a roll of paper feeding into a printer.

"Do you need to get back to work? I don't mean to make you go out of your way on my account."

"Nah. The company can stand to be without me for the rest of the day." This Trunks swallowed another bite in tandem with Goten, and then they crossed their arms over one another's as they claimed another plate of food.

"Don't worry," Bulma chimed in from the shining silver sink. "He's got the rest of his life to catch up on whatever he misses!"

"Gee, thanks, mom."

"You think we oughta go to the amusement park, first, Trunks?" Goten asked the one in teal. "We could all play that racing game you like."

"Maybe. But he might not like the novelty of something like that. He might not get it, being from such a dark time, and all. And it's not like we can't just do more exciting stuff by ourselves with our own powers."

"I know what an amusement park is. I've been to one before," the other Trunks said. "They're okay on a normal day, I suppose."

Goten's focus remained on his friend's sky blue ones, not the deep midnight of their guest's. "Whaddabout a movie? Would be like a movie?"

"Movies are fine," the Trunks in question said. "Though I personally would prefer a comedy. I'm not particularly fond of monster movies anymore."

The other Trunks waved away both Goten's suggestion and the outside comments. "No, no, that won't work," he said. "It's not special enough. Maybe the ocean."

"But we already went swimming," Goten countered. "We can do that whenever on Mount Paozu."

"That would still be fun, though," Trunks the guest interjected. "I don't go to the beach much."

Goten leaned in closer to his cohort, as if to shut out everyone else. "Oh! The museum! I love the bug exhibits!"

"What the heck could bugs tell him about anything?"

"I dunno. But I've been on this earth for eighteen years, and I still think they're cool!"

"That's just stupid!"

"No way! You're the one that's stupid. Swimming! That's all you've come up with, and of course _I_ already thought of that."

"Well, I just thought I'd double-check."

" _Well_ , joke's on you, you didn't need to."

"Um," the third-wheel Trunks tried, resting his fork and knife on the edge of his empty plate.

Bulma came up behind him. "They get like this whenever they aren't sure about something and need to think aloud. Just give 'em a few minutes and they'll come back out of their little world."

"So I suppose this happens all the time," Trunks whispered under his breath.

His pristine, elegantly groomed likeness flashed Goten a smug smile. "You're such a kid sometimes, geez."

"So're you. You're playing hooky from work," Goten shot back.

"Well, we've got to think of _something_. We can't just drag him along without knowing anything about him first. That's not a good way to make people like you. Not exactly a great icebreaker."

"Yeah. Normally," Goten said. "But maybe, _just_ maybe, that's exactly what we should do. We could introduce ourselves by showing him who we are. _That's_ something cool."

Trunks's eyebrows shot up. "You serious?"

"Just the basics, yeah."

Trunks's bright, light eyes darkened beneath his brows into a color deeper than his shirt. "I don't know about that, Goten."

"I never said he had to try it _with_ us," Goten said.

The kitchen doorway slipped open, and Vegeta's compact, lithe body sauntered into the room. He nodded at Trunks and Goten, and then his wife, but his eyes grew to the size of the saucers when he spotted the other Trunks, garbed in Goten's oldest pair of jeans and a simple royal blue vest over a black shirt, sitting at the kitchen table. He quickly composed himself and strode over to him, his arms crossed.

"Oh! Hello, father," Trunks said, taking a stand from his chair and bowing. "It's so wonderful to see you again!"

Vegeta grunted and eyed Goten and his other son's heated discussion before turning back to the first person to ever call him father. "Have you been keeping up with your training? You look smaller," he said.

"Yes, I have been, though to a lesser degree now that my world is safe." He clenched his fists. "I am also hoping to build myself and my muscles in such a way that my speed is not as inhibited as it was the last time you saw me, and so my size has changed to reflect this choice."

Vegeta gave another grunt. "You should always push yourself. But it is good so long as you at least keep yourself disciplined. Unlike _some_ of us," he said, sending a pointed glare to the Trunks in teal.

That son closed his eyes and took a deep breath to soften the negative attention. His mother only sighed.

"Of course, father," Vegeta's other son said.

With that, Vegeta gave one final grunt and then exited the kitchen through the door on the other side.

The Gravity room was white, lonely, and covered in scars and scour marks.

"So father still uses this room, huh?" Trunks said, stripping Goten's vest and shirt off of his body. His voice carried the edge of an echo.

"Yup," answered Goten. "All the time."

"He is very dedicated. I've always admired him for that." Trunks smiled. "I'm always so grateful that, despite everything he put me through, I got to know him. I aspire to make him proud, even when he can't see me."

"...Yeah." The other Trunks crossed his arms and looked over at Goten. The normally clear blue in his eyes was cloudy and troubled.

"So, um," their guest started, folding his clothes neatly and setting them by his leg, "what sort of technique are you going to teach me?"

"Hm? Nah, we're not _teaching_ it to you," Goten said. "You're just an audience. So put your clothes back on- you're not gonna sweat or nothin'."

"Oh!" Trunks said, flushing and replacing the shirt and vest in a flurry of movement.

Goten's counterpart watched him, his slow, porcelain smile echoing Vegeta as it spread across his face. "Aw, Goten. Don't shoot him down- he was just trying to show off for us."

"N-no, I," Trunks swallowed and squirmed. His face stuck in the collar of his shirt, and he only turned a brighter color as he righted his clothing.

Goten and the other Trunks laughed, the light of the room hitting their eyes to make them reminiscent of a night sky and a daytime one respectively. "Don't worry," they both said. "We're about to look really stupid in a minute, so we can call it even."

"Trunks?" Goten asked his opposite. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

"Hold your laughter, please. We'll lose focus," Goten warned.

The two of them stuck both of their arms out to either side, stood on their tiptoes, grapevined towards one another, and slowly arced their arms over their heads and towards one another. " _Fuuu-_ ," their voices rumbled in tandem. Then, they stood on one foot and snapped their arms to the opposite sides of their bodies, " _-sion_ ," they cried. Suddenly, they lunged to the side towards one another and brought their hands together. " _Ha_!"

Trunks tensed when both boys disappeared in a flash of light, like a sun was born right in the middle of the room and ate them up in their entirety.

"T-Trunks!" he cried, shielding his eyes. "Goten!"

The light faded as quickly as it came, and something living and humanoid stood in its place.

"They're here," the figure said. Its voice reverberated around the room in a strange harmony, like two people speaking at once. "But also not."

Trunks blinked at this new figure as it cracked its neck and took lazy, deliberate steps towards him. "What just happened? Where's Goten, and the other me?"

The figure threw its head back and laughed, the jet black hair on the crown of its head flopping backwards. The underside of it was a deep purple that faded into a powdery indigo. "I'm Gotenks, and I'm _entirely_ different than you, both when I'm together and when I'm apart. So get it right." Gotenks leaned over into Trunks's face. "And I told you. Trunks and Goten are here, but they're not here." Its eyes gleamed like twilight, and its face moved like an overlay of two people's features, like it was a mask reminiscent of two people at one time depending on the angle of the light.

"Ah," Trunks said. "W-wow."

"'Wow', huh? So _that's_ what he's got to say about it."

"I-It's amazing! You two are," Trunks reached out to touch Gotenks's hair, " _really_ one person! It's incredible!"

Gotenks grabbed Trunks's arm away and held it. Then, it sneered and drew closer to Trunks, and then even closer, pushing him backwards all the way, until the lone boy was pressed into a wall. "Yeah," Gotenks said, his eyes giving off a cold glint. " _I'm_ one person. Not you and Goten, not you and Trunks. But _Gotenks_. You? You're somebody else."

Trunks pulled his arm away, and the shock erased itself from his features and morphed into a frown. "Yes. I know," he said, and separated himself from the wall.

The purified, negative air in the room weighed down heavily upon both of them even though the gravity machine was dark and silent. Trunks tilted his chin up to challenge Gotenks's gaze.

The empty room held its breath.

Then, Gotenks grinned, and the vents came back on. "Good!" He backed away from Trunks and threw his arms behind his head. "Say, did you know that I'm even stronger than Gohan like this?" Gotenks spun back around, and the starry light from Goten's eyes sat atop his counterpart Trunks's prideful smile.

"Uh."

"What, you don't believe me? Or do you just think you're better than me?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. It's just," Trunks spread his arms out wide. "This is a lot to take in, you know? I don't know what to think, really."

Gotenks nodded. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I see." He took a fighting stance, his teeth gleaming like that of a mountain lion under the impression that it was just a common kitten. "Let's spar."

"Huh?"

"C'mon. I'm like this for thirty minutes. You'll survive," Gotenks said. "Unless you're _chicken_."


	5. How the Other Half Lives (part II)

Capsule Corporation Complex's central park was absolutely covered in flowers- golden sunflowers stood at attention under the constant heat of the fading sun and pinwheels of coral, white, and purple vinca plumed up out of the ground in sprawling bouquets of color.

Trunks and his twin stood on the island of rust red and sand-colored tiles nestled in the center of the sea of flora, the master of the property with his arms crossed and the other with his arm outstretched, waving skyward to a figure shrinking down to a speck, and then disappearing completely.

"Goten likes you," Trunks, the taciturn one, said.

"Oh?" His doppleganger stopped waving and looked over at him. "Good. I like him, too."

"Hmph."

Trunks turned, the golden sun catching on his lighter, long hair. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Nah."

"Then, what is it?"

The Trunks of the present uncrossed his arms and adjusted his teal shirt. "He didn't tell his mom who you were, did he? And she didn't figure it out on her own, right? That's why you're staying here, because he doesn't want her to get suspicious."

"I didn't like lying to Mrs. Son," the other admitted.

"Usually, neither does Goten. In fact, he almost _never_ hides anything big from her. But he wanted to keep you a secret."

"Why?"

"He wanted to know for sure if he was the only one who could immediately see the difference between you and me without being prompted. Obviously, he couldn't try that with my parents, since I was right there, and mom needed to know the situation about the time machine." Trunks flipped his own short bangs away from his forehead. "And they just saw me get my hair cut again last week, so that alone was a dead giveaway. Besides, you were here long enough the first time to become like their older son, so it wasn't like you're all that new to them."

"Oh." Trunks reached around his head and grabbed his ponytail. "It is getting a little crazy, isn't it?"

"Eh, it's hair. I just chop mine off so people don't ride me about it. And it gets in my way, when it's long."

"I see." Trunks flipped the ponytail back over his shoulder, and studied his twin in teal as he scanned the horizon, his mouth in a flat line. "Trunks," he asked, "are you, um. Are you jealous of me?"

The sunflowers rolling in waves over the gentle hills of the park turned their heads to watch the two eerily similar boys as the sun sank lower on the horizon.

"Goten's my best friend," Trunks said. "We're so close that we can occupy the same body and not hate each other. What am I going to do if he decides he likes you better?"

"You think he is going to try and replace you with me?" Trunks laughed, his darker eyes matching the deep blue of his best in the lowering light. "I wouldn't worry about that. He was very adamant about the fact that we aren't the same, even before the two of you became Gotenks."

The other Trunks let out a snort. "Yeah, I know. That's almost worse."

"I'm sorry?"

"What if he likes you better _because_ you _aren't_ me at all?"

"I, um," Trunks swallowed. A lonely crow called out from beyond the horizon. "Surely he won't like anyone more or less than anyone else. It'll just be, um, _different_."

"Did he say that?"

"Yeah."

The crow in the distance cackled louder in search of its murder.

"Well," Trunks said, crossing his arms back over his teal shirt, "what can I say? Best friends can get jealous, too, when their best bro falls in love."

Then, he laughed when his mirror image's face matched the hottest color of the sunset.

"Wh-what?!"

"Heh! Don't bother telling me I'm wrong. I've been in his head. I know."

Trunks's dark blue eyes bugged out of his head. "B-but! I don't," he floundered, "I barely know him!"

"When Goten makes up his mind about something, that's all she wrote. It's just the way it is! You might as well accept it!" The other Trunks laughed, his short hair falling across his forehead as he tilted it back. "But you've been around him for about, what, two days now? Six more won't kill you. Then, mom'll have your weird egg machine fixed, and you can go on your merry way, and I'll have to deal with Goten's moping again."

"Again?"

"Yeah," Trunks said, planting his hands on his hips. "This isn't the first time you've shown up, y'know. And every time, I swear, for at least, like, a month afterwards, all he talks about is you. Even when we were kids." He twisted his mouth into something between a frown and a smile. "I've been jealous of you all my life, in some way or another. But you," he said, turning his crystalline blue eyes squarely onto his twin's darker ones, "from what Goten tells me, you've been jealous of _me_."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The third day, Vegeta insisted that both of his sons train with him in the gravity room and spar against one another.

The visiting Trunks ultimately triumphed against his twin, but not before the losing party caught him in a hold and whispered in his ear, "Goten and I, when we're together, we're trouble, like a selfish, naive child. You've seen. I want to show off, and he wants to play games. But you, you're so serious. How's that gonna work, huh?"

Goten poked his head into the gravity room then. "Bulma says lunch is ready."

"Oooh! Great!" Trunks said, releasing his captured double and heading towards the door.

The other Trunks grabbed him and pinned him against the wall. "If you show off all the time, nobody will want to play with you," he said.

His opponent conceded at that, and they joined Bulma in the kitchen for lunch.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The next day- the fourth day- Goten, his best friend, and his best friend's spitting image sat in the living room of Gohan's spacious mansion. The homey, humble furniture clashed with the gilded busts of Hercule Satan, Savior of Earth, and with the spacious ceilings and grand windows, but Gohan smiled happily within the dichotomy.

"This must seem like the punchline of a bad joke to you," Gohan said to the Trunks of a different time.

"At first glance, yes," Trunks replied. "But not now. It's wonderful. Strange, maybe, hard to believe, definitely, but wonderful. If I could have a piece of this kind of world to bring back with me to mine, I think that alone would make such a difference- it would prove that we can change our circumstances with our own hands. Anything is possible." He smiled. "Nightmares really end, and when they do, all you have to do is wake up to see the sun."

Goten grinned to match the face of the Hercule Satan bust sitting opposite him. "Well, if _that's_ the case, I'm sure my brother wouldn't mind popping one of these golden guys off the walls for you to take as a souvenir. There's your symbol of hope right there."

"Well, that might be a little much," Trunks admitted.

His twin and the Sons laughed.

"Say," Gohan said, "why don't you stay for dinner? Pan and my wife will be home then. You should meet them. After all, you're like family."

Trunks folded his hands together and smiled. "I would love to, if you'll have me."

Goten nudged him. "Of course we do."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The fifth day, it rained, and it was so muggy from the summer's heat that only the state-of-the-art ventilation of the Capsule Corporation could combat it. The three boys sprawled out under the air conditioning vents in Trunks's room.

"Hey," Goten said suddenly. "Stand up."

Trunks of his time, still in his soft grey pajama pants and green nightshirt, and the Trunks from another, in a deep blue tee shirt and shorts, both got to their feet.

"Nah, this one's only for those of us who bothered to get dressed this morning." Goten gestured to his own orange tank and denim shorts. "Not for the lazy."

"Hey, unlike _some_ of us, I have a job." Goten's best friend pushed him playfully in the head, but then sat back down on the ground.

"We can't _all_ graduate early, mister genius." Goten snickered, and then turned to his partner. "Alright, so, do what I do." He positioned himself so that his arms were facing away from Trunks, and his weight was on his toes. "Okay? So do this, and then step out while your arms move above your head, and then-"

" _Woah_ ," Trunks said from the floor.

"What? I'm bored. It's rainy. I'm just showing him my part of it. Don't get your panties in a bunch," Goten said.

"Exactly. You're showing him _your_ part, where I'd be the mirror." Trunks shook his head. "Not cool, man."

"Uh," the other Trunks said. "We can do something else, if you want. We could spar, or-"

"Come _on_ ," Goten said, his attention still on the boy sitting on the floor. "I'm just showing him to show him. The two of you couldn't fuse even if you decided you wanted to try, and you and I both know it. It's not a big deal."

"Then why don't you teach him _my_ part, huh?" Trunks shot back, climbing to his feet.

"Because _he isn't you_ ," Goten said, rolling his eyes. "It wouldn't work out if he tried to be."

Trunks stared, lavender eyebrows pinched over his nose and mouth agape, and then shoved his hands with a smile. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, I guess you've got a point, there." He sat back down. "Go nuts."

"Are you sure?" the other Trunks asked, searching out his twin's light eyes.

Trunks leaned against the foot of his bed. And crossed his arms. "Goten's made up his mind," he said. "So yeah. It's just a dance, after all."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

On the sixth day, the rain was gone and left a mist in its place. In the city, it was still brutal, but on Mount Paozu, it was cool and crisp. The green of the trees shone through the mist like gold peeking up at the sun from the ocean floor.

"You mean the boy who spent the night was a different Trunks?!" Chi Chi screeched. "And you didn't tell me?!" She gripped at her hair. "And now they're BOTH here for lunch _and_ dinner? What am I gonna feed you?!"

"Sorry, mom," Goten said. "We're gonna go camping, though, so you don't have to-"

"No fish," Chi Chi said. "Just don't bring back any fish. I'm so tired of cleaning them!"

When night finally came, the daylight had burned away all of the moisture from the air. Goten tended the fire and observed the dancing lesson between the two Trunks.

"You synchronize yourself to the other person," the teacher said. "You can only be as good as your worst qualities. But you can only be as bad as your best."

"I think I get it," the student said. "But, um, this is just a technique, isn't it?"

"...Yeah."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Briefs family and Goten stood and watched, rooted to the tiles of the Complex's central park, as Trunks climbed into his machine.

"I thought it was supposed to be eight days," Goten said, clenching and unclenching his fists. "It's only been a week."

His best friend slung an arm around his shoulders. "Well, we Briefs are scary competent. But we'll see you later, right, Trunks?" He sauntered over to the machine and floated in the air next to it. "Right?" He patted the machine.

"I hope so," Trunks said. "I would like to. But I don't want to dawdle and risk-"

" _Right_ ," his twin said, dropping back to the ground and turning back to Goten. His hand ran along the machine as he turned, and flicked the carving of the word _HOPE!_ tattooed onto its side.

Trunks nodded over the controls and waved goodbye. "Thank you for everything," he said, and set the machine to take him back from whence he came.


	6. Choices

The time machine halted in the night sky and rushed to meet the tiled path of the Capsule Corporation's central park in a hasty reunion. Steam hissed from the joints of the metal landing gear and it deployed and the thrusters lit up to slow its inevitable descent.

Once it landed, Trunks popped open the hatch on the top and breathed in the warm night air. He took in the rows and rows of perfectly manicured sunflowers and the clumps of brightly colored vinca with a troubled expression. "This isn't my West City," he said. "It's too lush, and too beautiful."

A stifled cry pulled Trunks's attention away from the flowers and instead to a lumpy figure sitting on the hill to his right, just beneath the first row of sleeping sunflowers.

"Goten?" Trunks called. "It's you, isn't it? I can feel your energy." He pulled himself out of his time machine and landed with a thud on the tile walkway.

The lights on the park path illuminated the area in response to Trunks's sudden movement, and the hillside was caught within the glow.

Goten sat, alert on the emerald grass and with a girl in his lap. Her dark hair was everywhere, and the shoulders of her dress sat low on her porcelain skin.

"T-Trunks," Goten managed. He scooted the girl off himself and scrambled to his feet. "I didn't expect you to be here."

"N-no," Trunks said, his face warming. "Neither did I." He swallowed. "I, um."

The girl stood up and looked between the two of them. "Uh," she said. "Trunks? Trunks Briefs, right?" Then, she nudged Goten. "Didn't you say he was your best friend? Aren't you going to introduce me?"

Goten gave her a tight smile. "No. That's a different guy. But he does look a lot like him, yeah."

"Oh?" The girl flipped her mahogany hair over her shoulders. "Well, shouldn't you still, like, introduce me?"

"Hi," Trunks said, hesitating, and then holding out his hand. "I'm, um," he looked to Goten. "Uh, that is to say, Goten and I know each other. I met him, um," he gave up and smiled.

The girl took his hand. "I'm Valese." She smiled. "You boys sure are being all weird about this! I thought it was only a secret to your mother that we were dating, not the whole world," she said to Goten.

"Ah, you're, um, dating?" Trunks said. "Oh, wow! Um, congratulations." He gave a choked laugh. "Goten's a, um. A really sweet guy. Really. You're, uh, you're very lucky to have him."

"See?" Valese said. "Have you been keeping secrets, Goten?" She stiffened her arms at her sides and pouted.

"...So was there something you needed?" Goten asked Trunks. "Or were you just here to say hi?"

"Oh! Trunks said. "N-no. I must've set the time coordinates incorr- I mean, I only happened to stop by. It's nothing, really. Nothing at all." He stepped backwards. "Please, um, e-excuse me. I didn't mean to bother you." With that, he turned on his heel and returned to his machine.

Goten watched him leave, a deep frown on his face and Valese no closer than arm's length.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The treetops of mount Paozu swayed in the breeze beneath Trunks, still covered in eternal shades of emerald and viridian.

He cursed when he saw it. "This isn't right," he muttered. "None of this is right!" Some air forced itself between his teeth. "I changed the location, so that worked, at least, but the timeline should've changed," he muttered.

He landed the time machine all the same, and popped open the hatch while he searched over the knobs and buttons jutting up from his control panel like candy-coated morsels arranged within a box.

"Look! Look, Trunks, he's back! He came back this year, too, like he said! Yeah!"

Trunks shot up at the sound of Goten's young, chirping voice.

"Hey!" the little boy launched himself into the air and floated level with Trunks's cockpit. "Is it broken again? Can I help fix it? Huh? Huh?"

Another child, his coloring like the daytime to Goten's night, floated up next to his best friend. "So you're the _other_ Trunks," he said, his blue eyes cold and curious.

"Ah," Trunks said. "Hello, Goten. Hello, little future me."

Trunks the child turned away. "You're not me," he said. " _I'm_ me."

"I apologize. It had only been a joke."

" _You're_ what's a joke," the small one retorted. "You're sitting there in a big, dumb egg on stilts!"

"Aw, Trunks!" Goten pouted. "Don't be like that! He's really cool, an' he's really strong! Don't be mean."

Goten's best friend crossed his arms and threw his nose in the air. "You keep sayin' that, but if he were _really_ strong, then he wouldn'ta' needed any help defeating Cell or the other Miss Eighteen and her brother. He'd've done it all by himself."

"Hey!" said Goten. "Lotsa strong people ask for help. My dad asked your dad for help before!"

"Pfft. That was a special case."

"Oh, yeah?! Well, you're strong, and I'm strong, but we still help each other! We're Gotenks!"

The young Trunks snorted, utterly defeated.

"Hey," Goten said, turning his attention back to the time machine and its pilot, "you think if we practiced, and you were younger, or if I was older, or maybe just taller, we could fuse?"

Trunks the child rolled his eyes. "No, dummy, because _he's_ not me."

"I didn't mean fuse into _Gotenks_ , I meant into something else. Of course he can't be Gotenks. That would be weird."

"You bet it would! Besides," the younger Trunks crossed his arms higher on his chest and tilted his chin towards the cloudless blue sky to best emulate his father, "he'd be better off fusing with his _own_ Goten, assuming his Goten is lame enough to be a match."

The birds filled the forest with unencumbered, clueless song.

"But, Trunks," Goten finally said, twiddling his thumbs, "he doesn't _have_ a Goten,"

Trunks the boy stared at Trunks the young man, his eyes wide. "There's only _one_? But that's," he shook his head.

"It's true," the older one said. "It's just me, where I'm from. You're lucky." He smiled. "I'm a little jealous, actually."

Goten hurried over closer to the time machine and perched on the lip of the cockpit. "Hey! Maybe I can be your Goten, too, for real! Let me come on adventures with you in your machine thingy, and we can-"

"No!" Trunks the child cried, quieting the chittering birds of the mountain. Then, he inhaled and quelled the trembling in his expression. "I mean," he started, "we shouldn't hang around strangers, and he's a stranger, no matter what he looks like or what he says."

"He's not a stranger!" Goten argued.

"Actually," the older Trunks said, "I sort of am. Your friend's pretty smart. You're very lucky to have someone like him to look out for you."

"B-but we met before! And Gohan knows you! And your energy feels so familiar!" The little boy's dark eyes shimmered wetly beneath the bright summer sun. "And I wanna see the place you're from! Really bad! And, and, a-and if I did that, I could get to know you and you wouldn't be a stranger at all, in any way! I could learn everything about you!"

"I'm sorry, Goten," Trunks said, running his hands over the switches of his machine. "I don't think that's such a good idea. It isn't safe."

"Yeah," the other Trunks said. "Let's go hunt for beetles. And after that, I'll let you play with the new toy mom got for me."

Goten's face turned red and hotter than the midday sun hanging high overhead. "Don't treat me like a little kid, either of you! I hate that!"

The older Trunks gestured to the dark-haired little boy. "I'm not, Goten, I'm just trying to look out for-"

"And don't _lie_ to me, either! That's worse!" His shoulders began to shake and he crossed his arms. "I just wanna be somebody's equal. I wanna be friends! Izzat so bad?!"

"No, Goten, I'm _flattered_ ," Trunks, the older one, stood up in the cockpit. "Really! And it's not about me not wanting to be friends, or anything like that."

"But you _are_ a little kid," Goten's childish best friend retorted. "And I'm a kid, too."

Goten whirled around in the air and stood as straight as the tall, green trees surrounding the trio, and refused to engage anything else besides the woods.

His best friend eyed his older doppleganger, the daytime sky of his eyes prodding at the nighttime hues of the other Trunks's. "So. What're you doing here, anyway? Why aren't you gone yet?"

"I can't get my machine to take me back to my timeline. I'm trying to figure out why."

The child leaned forward and examined the buttons on the cockpit dashboard. Then, he nodded and stuck his hand inside to mash out a combination of keys on the keyboard.

"H-hey! Careful with that!"

"Those're the override commands mom programs into all her stuff as a default," he said. "If you hit 'em again, you can lock a certain function of the machine so that the other manual input settings don't change anything. But I just disabled whatever it was that got locked, so, " the little boy nodded. "So now, whatever you tell it to do is gonna work."

Trunks looked at him in disbelief. "Huh," he said. "You're pretty good with this kind of stuff, huh?"

"Duh. I'm a Briefs," the boy said. "But anyway, get outta here before Goten forces himself into your machine.

The other boy turned his head at the sound of his name, and perched back on the lip of the cockpit as if in defiance of his best friend's hopes. "Hey," he said, "are you gonna come back?"

"Uh," the older Trunks said. "I hope so. Well, yes, actually, since I just did, which I think means that I will, from your point of view." His face twisted into a concentrated mask, and then uncoiled into a happy smile. "Yes! Definitely."

Goten grinned. "Good, 'cause I wanna come with you when I'm older," he said. "That way, you won't get lonely like my brother was, or like Vegeta was when my dad was gone." He trailed backwards from the time machine, his feet still dangling above the ground. "You'll want me to come with you then, right? When we're equals?"

"I…" Trunks stared at Goten's open face, his young features totally illuminated and open under the light of the stars in his eyes. "Maybe," he said. "I don't know. I've only known you when you're older for a week, after all."

"Well, bring me with you an' _then_ decide after you've gotten to know me," Goten insisted.

The younger Trunks huffed through his nose, and then followed his friend's lead. "Yeah? If that ever happens, you prolly won't wanna go anymore. You'll have school and maybe a girlfriend, like Gohan does."

Goten snubbed his best friend. "No. I mean it. I wanna go. This is what I want. The other stuff isn't as important to me, so I'll drop it if I have to."

The older Trunks raised his eyebrows up to his hairline.

"Whatever you say, Goten," his best friend muttered.

"You know I will."

The birds filled the silence while the younger Trunks cast his pupils to the lower corners of his eyes and hugged himself, a deepening frown growing over his face.

"We'll see."

"Promise me you'll think about it?" Goten tried.

The breeze caught the long blades of green grass in its momentum, and butterflies flitted in circles around one another, their wings dipped in colors of yellow, black, and blue.

"...Goodbye, boys," the older Trunks said, his cheeks dusted with a faint shade of rose. He closed the cockpit and entered new numbers.

The children watched him as he disappeared into the sky, the dark-haired one waving and his lavender-haired counterpart only watching the sky with a sour look on his face.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The West City lurking in the realm of dystopian realities was lopsided and full of holes- both from the lack of people, and from the scars of damage unleashed on it during its initial decline. Since then, the plants that forced their way out of the ground to claim the peace following the death of the Android menace were scrubby, shrubby, and disorganized.

The streets were almost always empty. The fear of sudden death still hung over the population like a cruel dream.

"This place makes us all feel lonely," Trunks's mother said to him. "Is that what you want?"

"No," her son replied, organizing Bulma's gears and screwdrivers across the wall of her workshop. "But why would anyone want to visit this place?"

"It's only so bad as long as you let yourself think it is," Bulma said. "And, you know, it's time the world moved on from cowering in fear and loss, I think." She patted her son on the arm. "This world is whatever you want to make it into now. You can bring whoever you want to into it, and that's that. It's up to you." She grinned. "We've got the time, and we've got the tech! Destiny's whatever we make it! You make your own rules, and time'll work around them. So what _do_ you want, son?"

Trunks smiled to himself and moved across the room to type something into the time machine.

Bulma grinned. "That's my boy."


	7. Seven

The dark sky over Mount Paozu did nothing to stifle the heat of the season. Trunks pulled his hair up into a ponytail the moment he opened the hatch of the cockpit and left his denim jacket behind in the pilot's seat soon after.

"Hello?" He called into the dark woods.

An owl asked for his name from the trees, but otherwise, only the frogs singing in the trees answered him.

"Ah," he said, floating into the air, "I guess I can't always expect for him to be waiting right where I show up," Trunks said to himself. He lifted up above the trees and peered down at the sea of leaves below, their green hue dulled by the dark night. Yellow-eyed creatures looked up at Trunks in bewilderment as he passed overhead before disappearing into the brush.

Finally, Trunks reached the clearing where the Son household lay, the pale plaster of its domed heart absorbing the hue of the cool moonlight above. He settled down near the open upstairs bedroom window and blocked the moon's view inside when he leaned in to peer past the glass.

Goten's chest rose and fell gently as he twitched in his sleep atop the blankets of his twin bed. The other mattress lay empty, the sheets pristine and undisturbed, to his right. Goten scratched his bare stomach and then rolled over.

Trunks chuckled, and then tapped on the window.

Goten did not so much as twitch.

Trunks tapped louder.

Goten only snored on, unencumbered.

"Goten!" Trunks called inside in a strained whisper. "Goten!"

Goten rolled his pillow over his ears.

"Aw," Trunks shook his head. "Geez." He quietly slipped into the room through the window and peered over the sleeping boy. "Hey," he said, reaching down to remove the pillow and threading his fingers through Goten's hair. "Hey, please wake up."

Goten did no such thing, and instead complained in his sleep.

"Please? I wanted to talk to you. I've, um, been given a lot of food for thought to chew on these last several days, and-"

Goten stirred, and then pushed his torso up off the bed with his forearms. He blinked lazily. "Hmm, whaddabout food?" Goten turned his head, discovered Trunks, and froze.

The lights in the night sky snickered as Goten gaped, his black hair sticking out of his head in every direction, clad in nothing but his underwear.

"Trunks!" he finally exclaimed, and threw himself at the other boy. Both of them collapsed into the ground, Goten grinning from ear to ear as he straddled his hostage and peered down at him with laughing, shining eyes. "I missed you, man! I was scared you weren't ever coming back, for a while!"

"W-well, I didn't mean to keep you waiting. I just, um," Trunks chuckled. "I have a great knack for, uh, timing?"

Goten's delayed laugh forced itself through his deadpan frown, and he leaned down to rest his head on Trunks's shoulder. "Sure, whatever you say!" He sat back on his haunches, right above Trunks's thighs. "So when was the last time you saw me from your point of view, anyway?"

Trunks pulled himself up so that he was sitting and his face was level with Goten's. "Well, I last saw you and Trunks- as kids- in the woods here, but I think from your point of view, it was, um," Trunks's eyes scanned the ceiling, and then his cheeks turned pink. "Y-your girlfriend is very lovely," he said, his gaze now searching the wood grain in the floor. "A-and I have just realized that I may have made a huge mistake based on the testimony of a child half our age. Um."

"Oh?" Goten grinned. "The last time I saw you, Trunks was telling me that he locked the timeline settings on your machine, actually." He laughed. "But yeah, Valese was pretty lovely." His eyes narrowed. "Keyword being, if you couldn't tell, _was_."

"A-ah!" Trunks said. "I'm, um, well." He cleared his throat. "It's unfortunate that it didn't work out. I'm sorry."

"Eh," Goten said. "I'm not."

"You're, um, not?"

"Nah. She was just pretty, and there. And we had fun and stuff, but it was whatever. I didn't ever think I was gonna stay with her for long. He grinned. "And then you showed up, again, after she was gone, and then _again_ right now, and that was that."

"R-really? But then," Trunks's face morphed into a picture of confusion, "why make her your girlfriend in the first place?"

"What can I say? You've given me a taste for beautiful things," Goten said. His dark eyes held dancing constellations inside of them.

"Why would you get that close to someone if you weren't going to stay with them forever?" Trunks said. "Doesn't saying that you love someone mean anything to you?"

Goten kneeled down and straddled Trunks's legs. His face drew closer to the other boy's, until their noses were almost touching. "Relationships are hard, and all of them are different, and important in their own way. But I never said I loved her. And I told you, didn't I? When I was little. I was gonna go with you, no matter what. If you'll let me. And that's what you're here to ask, right?"

"Well," Trunks said, "y-yes."

Goten cocked his head. "Good, 'cause I meant _that_."

"I still don't understand," Trunks said. "Why would you just leave that girl like that, over an old promise?"

Goten opened his mouth, and then closed it. "You've never dated, have you?"

"No. But what's that got to do with it? You shouldn't play with people's emotions."

"I wasn't."

"But she really seemed to like you," Trunks said.

Goten shook his head. "Alright, look. Your mom and your dad. The one from your time. Your actual, biological dad. He loved your mother?"

"Y-yes! Of course. She knew he did, in her heart, from the very beginning."

Goten nodded. "That's nice." Then, he jolted forward. The sudden movement pushed Trunks back down to the floor, and Goten peered down into his eyes. Trunks's light hair had escaped from its tie, and it cascaded over the floor behind his head like a puddle of shining water. "Uncle Vegeta didn't love anyone, in the beginning. That's the truth, isn't it? I see it in Trunks's baby pictures, in how Vegeta isn't there, or how they used to freeze up when I asked how they met, how they decided on my best friend's name, how Gohan would leave things out of his stories. But you. You saw it for yourself, right?"

The moonlight caught each loose strand of Trunks's hair and dyed it silver along with the ridge of his forehead and the peaks of his nose and lips. "I," he swallowed.

"But my best friend was still born, even so," Goten said, releasing Trunks. "Lots of things can happen with or without love, you know. sometimes, it's innocent, and at the end of the day, it's fine. Sometimes, it's not. And sometimes, it's just something that happens." He stood up and sat on the edge of his bed.

"But it's," Trunks swallowed and sat up, "wrong. To go so far, to get so deep into someone's life, and then go away, just like that, when you get bored."

"Oh? So you should stay with someone forever _just because?_ "

"Not _just because!"_ Trunks said. "You should stay with someone because you love them, and you mean it. And," he shook his head, "and even though it's hard, it's worth it. You're sharing a life with somebody, and that's a promise. It's like giving a part of yourself to somebody else, and they should give just as much back." He stood up. "You're two people, but at the same time, you're _not_. It's something different. You're," he gestured at the air in front of him, "you're-!"

Goten stood, too.

"It's different, you know? It's special." Trunks's deep blue eyes darted to Goten's, and the pinpricks of light sitting within them. "You shouldn't turn your back on something like that. You have to trust each other, and try, and," he clenched his fists at his sides. "I don't know how to explain it. But it's not cheap, sharing your life with somebody. It's precious, and-"

Goten grabbed Trunks's wrists, and then kissed him.

The moon looked on over the two of them and the breeze swept through the room through the open window. The smell of rich earth and of the fresh mountain air followed on its heels.

"Why?" Trunks asked as Goten pulled away.

"Because. Where there's a you, there's a me, and that's just the way it is."

"There's a Trunks here, though. Are you just leaving him, like you turned away the girl? Will you do the same to me?"

"That's not the same," Goten said. "Not at all. You're not the same. None of you are. And I'll never really _leave_ Trunks, not the way you're thinking. I'm loyal, when I make up my mind to be. And I mean that."

"So that's it? You're still taking your time, deciding, until the day that you decide you want something else and you can just leave?" Trunks asked.

Goten's eyelids lowered over his dark eyes, but his gaze never left Trunks's face. "Says the person who was gonna stay here for eight days but then decided to leave after seven."

Trunks stood up straighter. "I didn't want to mess up this timeline! I thought it would be better for everyone!"

"Oh, yeah? And what are you doing here _now_ , then?"

Trunks ground his back teeth.

"Sometimes, we all mess things up for someone else while tryin' to make up our minds for ourselves, you know."

Trunks sighed.

And then, Goten smiled. "C'mon," he said. "Try something with me." He tugged on Trunks's arm and slowly rose off the ground and towards the window. "It's past midnight. This is technically your eighth day of even knowing I exist, isn't it?"

At first, Trunks hesitated, but then followed. "I suppose, yes."

"It's been longer than that, for me," Goten added.

The moon coated them both in white light like a spotlight, and the stars above them and the pinpricks of eyes under the tree cover of the mountain below them followed both Trunks and Goten across the night sky and to a waterfall slowly carving out time from the thick rock face of Mount Paozu.

"You remember my part of the dance, right?" Goten asked as he touched down on the cool, wet rocks of the mountain.

"Yes," Trunks said.

"Good," Goten said.

"But why? It's just a technique, isn't it? Why do that now?"

"Because," Goten said. "I wanna see if we understand each other." He stood even with Trunks and held his arms out to the side. "Don't you?"

The roar of the waterfall echoed off the mountain as soft, white mist disappeared into the sky.

"Only if you want to," Goten said. "It's up to you."

Trunks mirrored his partner's stance. "...Alright. I think I'm ready to try."


	8. Eight (epilogue)

The mountain's spring greens had begun to turn darker, and the blossoms on each branch had long since browned and fallen to make way for the fruits of the summer.

Goten and his brother stood, hand in hand, their eyes skyward, as a machine suddenly appeared in the sky and gently descended before them.

The rounded, clear hatch on its top slid open and Trunks smiled down at the two brothers. His copilot grinned and waved at the two in the ground from the controls.

"Hello, Gohan. Hello, Goten," Trunks said.

The youngest boy gaped and hid behind his older brother's leg.

"Trunks!" Gohan said, grinning. "Hi!" He nudged his little brother. "It's okay, squirt! You don't need to be scared! This is, uh," he searched the air above his head. "This is a friend! He's a time traveller!"

Little Goten peeked up at Trunks. "Really?"

Trunks nodded. "Really. And, you know, I can't stay very long, but I do have a favor to ask of you, Goten," he said. "Do you think you can do it for me?" He jumped down from the cockpit and landed nearly on the emerald carpet of grass and moss decorating the forest floor. Gohan gave him a hug when he stood.

"I dunno," the little boy said. "Is it hard?"

"No," Trunks said. "I just need you to remind me of something next time you see me here, is all."

"You're going to be back again?" Gohan asked.

"Yeah," Trunks said. "Just for a little while, at least."

Goten looked over the yellow and black machine perched on the grass behind Trunks. "Izzat your time machine?" he asked. "Can I ride in it?"

At that, Trunks laughed, as did his co-pilot. "One day, maybe, a long time from now!"

Little Goten hugged his brother's leg."

"But here's what I need you to tell me later so I don't forget, okay? It's what I should do if my time machine overheats."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 **The End.**

 **Author's Note: Thank you very much for reading and thank you even more to those of you who pop in to leave a comment or review.**


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